Totally unreligious people 'hate the jooos' for one inexplicable reason or another. It usually involves some sort of conspiracy theory or just a hatred of different cultures.

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Evolution solves a lot of problems that programmers cant solve, a programmer can’t think of every problem that might occur if say a robot was sent to Mars and fell into a hole, through evolution that robot could learn how to climb out of the hole without the interference of humans.

That reminds me of Erasmus in The Bulterian Jihad and the next two books in the Dune prequel series. He was a thinking machine that fell into a crevasse but didn't die. He just sat and thought and the more time went on the less he was synchronized to the central Omnius computer mind. When he was able to climb out of the hole he was an independent thinking machine. I guess that was speciation? Uh, yeah, anyway...

And anyone who says they'd "do" Ann Coulter must not have seen her in person. She's hideously grotesque. She looks like an alien or some sort of robot mannequin, as in not human.

Hogwash. A class of devices called the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) has been around for almost 25 years. I remember when my Intel Field Service Engineer was hyping Xilinx FPGA’s to me in the mid-1980’s. I presumed Intel had a financial stake in Xilinx. They were way too slow for anything I was doing but they can be reconfigured on the fly, in-circuit, running hot.

Uh, DaveScot, uh DellMillionaire Genius? You do know that by using the word "programmable" in the name of the device, that means that it is controlled by software don't you?

Hogwash. A class of devices called the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) has been around for almost 25 years. I remember when my Intel Field Service Engineer was hyping Xilinx FPGA’s to me in the mid-1980’s. I presumed Intel had a financial stake in Xilinx. They were way too slow for anything I was doing but they can be reconfigured on the fly, in-circuit, running hot.

Uh, DaveScot, uh DellMillionaire Genius? You do know that by using the word "programmable" in the name of the device, that means that it is controlled by software don't you?

Using a computer program to test various hardware configurations for fitness in a problem solving situation and determine which is the optimal is not evolution, it is simply the application of trial and error at a much faster pace than we can do it without the speeds computers use.

Uh, natural selection is pretty much iterative trial and error over biological and geological time scales, is it not? So what if computers/robots do it faster? Does that change the basic premise? Designed Jacob needs to lay off the acid

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Also, has anyone noticed that the notion of RMNS as opposed to creationism has the effect of making us greater than God, because it makes the Creator unintelligent chaos, whereas we are intelligent?

Whoa man. Like cool. I guess I need to worship the Great Unintelligent Chaos at the First Church of the Probability Vector.

So far it seems to me the evidence show that complexes creatures/things/programs can’t make anything as complex or more complex than itself. So no doubt a very complex computer program (made by even more complex human) could build/design less products yet the program would be more complex than the product /results itself. Same with humans; will we really be able to create our own equal like in sci-fi? From my understanding even God doesn’t have an equal (Can God create his equal?); thus we are less complex than our Creator.

And whatever created our Creator must be REALLY friggin complex. And can God create his equal? Can God create a rock so heavy he can't lift it? Like whoa man. Heavy.

Over on the ARN discussion board there is a discussion about that computers can generate CSI that refutes ID. This “aiguy” is clueless to the fact that the CSI generated by the computer can be traced back to its designers.

1st Jospehus must adequately define CSI. Then, he must trace CSI in biology back to its designer. Good luck.

Hogwash. A class of devices called the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) has been around for almost 25 years. I remember when my Intel Field Service Engineer was hyping Xilinx FPGA’s to me in the mid-1980’s. I presumed Intel had a financial stake in Xilinx. They were way too slow for anything I was doing but they can be reconfigured on the fly, in-circuit, running hot.

Uh, DaveScot, uh DellMillionaire Genius? You do know that by using the word "programmable" in the name of the device, that means that it is controlled by software don't you?

Not 5 trillion dipstick switches?

Or 5 trillion POOFS from the intelligent designer. Cheesy poofs, that is.

I guess you could wire everything manually. There are many electronic devices where the programs are hardwired into a chip. But, what is really the definition of software? To me the definition of software IS a program. If you program something by manually wiring it using schematics, or the instructions are fed by punchcard or a magnetic disk, then the instructions themselves, no matter how they were entered ARE the software. If something is programmable, there is a program involved and (to me at least) a program = software, no matter the input device.

I don't like "trail and error" because the interpretation is ambiguous.

for example:

A random number between 1 and 10 is picked.

Q) is it 7?

A) Lower.

I could technically then ask "is it 9?" under a weak interpretation of "trail and error", under the very weakest I could ask "is it 7?" again. Evolutionary mechanisms select for best environmental fit and 'trail an error' does not speak to their ability to narrow large search spaces down to local or global optima very quickly.

I don't like "trail and error" because the interpretation is ambiguous.

for example:

A random number between 1 and 10 is picked.

Q) is it 7?

A) Lower.

I could technically then ask "is it 9?" under a weak interpretation of "trail and error", under the very weakest I could ask "is it 7?" again. Evolutionary mechanisms select for best environmental fit and 'trail an error' does not speak to their ability to narrow large search spaces down to local or global optima very quickly.

I did say "iterative" trial and error.

And another thing.

The whole Eugenics thing is so stupid. Eugenics is based on ARTIFICIAL selection. Not "Darwinism."

The bottom line is, it is easy to wave the hand with a knowing grin and a mocking tone and say enough mutations within enough time can produce anything, and this may be hypothetically true.

Assuming by "mutations" you mean evolutionary mechanisms, then that is incorrect. Most of the available search space will not be searched, indeed, can never be searched. Consider the analogous situation with words (with suitable parameters for mutation and recombination). Though we can demonstrably evolve very long words such as 'denominationalists', we will never evolve 'qqqqqq' via step-wise changes. That's because there is no possible predecessor word to 'qqqqqq'. Similarly, we know that a Griffin or Centaur could not have evolved through known evolutionary mechanisms, but are artificial constructs.

What does Dembski know about sex? The guy is probably STILL a virgin! Yeah. So what. He's got kids... your point?

Kristine - Put down the photo, back away from the printer, nobody has to get hurt...

Report for some re-grooving, and you'll be good-as-new, back to shimmying and kicking some ID buttocks soon!

Oh. My. God. I just noticed Ectomorph Bill's name on that book.

Sex tips from Bill Dembski. Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick.

It's funny how hidden God is in the discussion of that book. Aside from Dembski's name, the ONLY hint that that book is presumably The Fundies Guide to Not Enjoying Sex is the mention of one of the authors publishing through Zondervan Press, which is a Christian Press.

(Oh yes, and one of the authors wrote sth. called "Reasonable Reasons to Wait". Okay, fine.)

Well, I always said watching IDers talking about science is like watching a bunch of virgins talk about sex. Now, with this book, well...

Oh, BTW, Jdog, you said:

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What does Dembski know about sex?

You're missing the point. In the fundie mindset, the less you know about sex, the MORE qualified you are to make pronouncements about it.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

The problem with orthodox darwinism, as shown by the adaptive evolution of the horse, is that rather than there being a single short direct line in which the intermediates fit, the procession is tree-like in that it contains collateral branches, vastly increasing the numbers of transitionals.

That's not a problem, but a prediction. The tree-like structure is one of the most important evidences of common descent.

Re "I don't like "trail and error" because the interpretation is ambiguous."

Well, how do you feel about trial and error, then? ;)

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Re "Can God create a rock so heavy he can't lift it?"

Probably not, given that there is an upper limit on how large a rock can be and still be a rock, rather than say, a black hole. :)

So what would happen if God tried to microwave a burrito so hot He could not eat it? Would it get hot enough to become a star, or something?

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

Joseph: “By looking at an automobile can you tell me who designed it and how it was manufactured? I doubt it.”

Pixie: Look at the front of most cars you will see a symbol or emblem; might say “Ford” on it, for instance. That will tell you the name of the company that designed and created it. A big clue I think.

Concerning cosmology, the fine-tuning of the universe for life would appear to be prima facie evidence for design. One can either choose to believe (at least provisionally) that this is the case, based on some evidence, or one can choose to believe in an infinitude of hypothetical alternate universes, which are in principle undetectable, based on no evidence.

This reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the scientific method. You can provisionally accept just about any assertion as a hypothesis (a tentative assertion proposed for the purpose of making empirical predictions). However, you don't consider such an assertion to be scientifically confirmed unless those predictions are subject to empirical testing. That includes multiple universes and fine-tuning assertions, neither of which (along with an infinitude of other scenarios) have obvious empirical implications. Believe what you want, but mere belief doesn't make those beliefs scientifically valid.

J Harlen Bretz developed a theory that certain local features were caused by cataclysmic water flows. He spent the next forty years trying to convince his colleagues. The turning point was when Joseph Thomas Pardee suggested that the water came from a large lake formed by an ice dam, which eventually failed catastrophically. This was plausible enough that scientists finally began to accept the obvious.

Gee, when new evidence was discovered, scientists modified their existing geological theories. What a novel concept.

Kristine says: Yes, they are that stupid. I've heard that one before. I heard it in church.

This was in the late 1970s and I think they used a potato chip bag, but it's the same story...

Kristine - I SWEAR I am NOT stalking you - I just ran into your post at Mike's...

But, I have to ask - Are you sure that the God Of The Penut Butter is the same as the God Of The Potato Chip?

Oh, how the bloody #### should I know, darlin'? I swear this latest batch of creationism that's hit the fan is giving me flashbacks. And my church wasn't wacky. Just every once in a while something wacky like that would come up.

No, you're no stalker, no worries. Believe me, I know what stalking is. Even the little troll who tags after me around the internet (look at the comment below mine at Jason's link) isn't really stalking me. I am keeping an eye on him, though.

--------------Which came first: the shimmy, or the hip?

AtBC Poet Laureate

"I happen to think that this prerequisite criterion of empirical evidence is itself not empirical." - Clive

Re "I don't like "trail and error" because the interpretation is ambiguous."

Well, how do you feel about trial and error, then?

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Re "Can God create a rock so heavy he can't lift it?"

Probably not, given that there is an upper limit on how large a rock can be and still be a rock, rather than say, a black hole.

Bbbut it's , uh, God and stuff and God can do anything.

Anything? Can He not exist?

Well, since Skeptic seems to think that not being a Christian is its own religion, then you'd think that not existing is an activity. Therefore, since God can do anything, not existing should be one of the things He can do.

Therefore, I have just proven the nonexistence of God.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

some people are perhaps so thoroughly consumed by their ideologies that they have the mental equivalent of firewalls which just won’t allow them to see as valid anything which isn’t compatible.

crandaddyEver wake up sweating in the night crandaddy? Unable to remember what it was that concerned you so very much? Hum.

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I cannot walk one mile, or dig one foot deep in my back yard without seeing “obvious” evidence of a great prehistoric flood

sagebrush gardener, same threadQuick, sage, better let AFDave know about your "obvious" evidence of a global flood, he could really really do with your help!In fact, why did you put "obvious" in scare quotes anyway? Are you not so sure it's really "evidence" after all? Would you care to expand on this "evidence"? Take, y'know, pictures and samples and whatnot?

--------------I also mentioned that He'd have to give me a thorough explanation as to *why* I must "eat human babies".FTK

if there are even critical flaws in Gauger’s work, the evo mat narrative cannot standGordon Mullings